


Knowing Tears

by completelyhopeless



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Community: comment_fic, F/M, Gen, implied if anything so it can be gen, it's about tears so consider that a warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-24
Updated: 2014-11-24
Packaged: 2018-02-26 19:43:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2664044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/completelyhopeless/pseuds/completelyhopeless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Red Room didn't allow tears. Natasha does not cry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knowing Tears

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scribblemyname](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribblemyname/gifts).



> For the prompt: _[Marvel Cinematic Universe, Clint Barton(/Natasha Romanoff) +/Bucky Barnes, You think I know anything about tears? Divergent, Veronica Roth](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/572854.html?thread=80103350#t80103350)_
> 
> Bucky didn't make it in, and the part with Clint is small, but this felt like Natasha so I wrote it anyway.

* * *

The Red Room didn't allow tears.

Not the kind that most people knew. There was no joy in the Red Room, so no one cried out of happiness. They did not even cry out of relief. They knew sorrow and sadness and pain, but they knew not to show it. Tears were weakness, and they were strong.

Later, tears were a weapon, a tool she learned to exploit. She used them in interrogations, in gaining access to what she wanted, but they were never real. She did not cry over what she had lost, what she had never had, never known, or did not remember. She did not cry unless she had use for her tears.

S.H.I.E.L.D. took her in, and they thought she would cry. With relief, with the memories, with what she had now, but she did not need the tears. She did not have to use them unless she was on a mission.

S.H.I.E.L.D. fell and her world crumbled, but she did not cry. She was Russian. She did not weep over the fall of regimes.

Then, when they were free and done and no longer spies, when they were safe, when the unexpected happened and Clint's blood was rushing past her fingers with no way to stop it, _that_ was when she cried.


End file.
